The meeting goes on for a while. 

Taver keeps reading minds.

The linguists are making slow incremental progress on the language samples. They should have Valdemaran speech synthesis up soon, and then they won't have to do the displaying a sign thing every time. The blue is now looking at satellite photos of the Velgarth region and imagining buying her granddaughter a TOTALLY EMPTY chunk of land and her granddaughter getting to do that development she's had dreamed up in various forms since she was two. The green is trying to help with the translation project with a view towards what they're about to want to talk about, which incidentally does turn up lots of nonmagical weaponry knowhow, although she doesn't know how it would stack up against magic bombs. Airstrikes would probably still work. The yellow is anxiously corresponding with his buddy from the other delegation, who is in the infirmary on the mothership with a hell of a lot of burns and will never look the same again.

Oh, if the Amentans want to pay Valdemar for land, that could really help a lot with the war expenses! Also it sounds like they should maybe offer some Healers the next time they talk? Healers can't completely fix the scarring from severe burns, but they can do pretty well at it. 

(Tran is a good example of this. The scars across half of his body are barely noticeable except in certain light.) 

(Shavri suddenly has such an intense desire to go to SPACE and help Heal aliens! She obviously cannot do this at all, and she's not going to bring it up, but...if only...) 

The meeting eventually trails off into mostly just Tran and Jaysen discussing how much sparsely-populated land they could sell to the aliens, how to get the relevant nobles on board with this - probably the best plan is just to bribe them, offer five percent of the gold paid for it - and how they might allocate this new source of funding. 

The sun's been down for a while and at this point everyone is clearly waiting on Randi to announce when the meeting is done. 

He sighs, and stands up. "- Well, it's late and we should probably call it a night. ...We should communicate with them, probably? Arrange a meeting for tomorrow." 

Tran doesn't actually look up. "Taver says he can do it," he mutters, distracted. 

Taver walks out and stops just in front of the space shuttle by the river. Waits to see if anyone will come out and talk to him. 

The hatch does open eventually and the blue sticks her head out. "Hello! Can I help you?" she says, by rote but not badly.

:Yes, you can. The Heralds would like to plan a time tomorrow morning to speak again?: 

"Yes!" she says, and then she writes, We are unsure about how keeping time is here.

:We have bells to mark the time of day. And candles for keeping time during meetings and such. I would propose a candlemark after dawn: 

"How long a candlemark?"

Taver, unlike an ordinary human - or even most of the other non-Groveborn Companions - comes up with a built-in capacity for mental math. 

He taps out a rhythm on the ground, about one tap per second. :About thirty-five hundred of that time interval. Time candles are not all exactly the same, so our timekeeping is somewhat approximate: 

She checks against her pocket everything's clock and does some arithmetic on its calculator and nods. "We will be ready!"

The Heralds trail off to bed. 

Conversations continue for a while longer in the places where Savil had them put microphones; the Palace staff work on shifts, there are things to be done nearly around the clock. And a few clerks have been tasked with reading books out loud, which the delegation has physical copies of already for comparison. They keep at their task until a reasonable bedtime and then stop. 

Taver doesn't need much sleep. He keeps mindreading the delegation on the shuttle for most of the night, if they're still awake and doing anything. 

They have a night shift grey but otherwise are on local time. The grey spends most of the night reading a series of graphic novels about the resentful daughter of a man who has children in seven dimensions.

In the morning, the Heralds are ready to meet at the appointed time, and Herald Jaysen walks over to escort the Amentan delegation to a meeting-room. 

The Amentan delegation are happy to accompany him! The blue has figured out enough of the language to compliment the architecture.

This time, King Randale of Valdemar is present in the meeting, and is delighted and honored to meet the delegates! He gives a very polite and diplomatic little speech, which Kilchas - a much stronger mindspeaker - translates in real-time just in case they’re not quite up for that yet on their language study. 

(Taver is, of course, still reading all of their minds from a distance.)

The blue has a speech translated and ready to read aloud too! She hopes that the people of Valdemar will all come out the better for having met the Amentans, healthier and wealthier with more opportunities and knowledge, and the Amentans are excited about the possibilities for trade and travel and synergy between their technology and the locals' magic, and she appreciates very much the warm welcome they have received. She even means it, pretty much. The green is hoping they got the register right. It has just occurred to the yellow that telepaths might be able to read minds and they should maybe ask but he's registering this by writing a message instead of interrupting; no need for everyone to immediately start thinking about missing socks at the same time. (Where DO they go though. Sometimes they're stuck inside your sheets but sometimes they aren't!)

Well. It was pretty much inevitable that they were going to notice that possibility eventually.

...Taver has such an uncomfortable feeling and doesn't trust the aliens at all! Inconveniently, he mostly has no idea why! 

"Well, let's get down to business. Herald Tantras?"